So I have finally got my MINI back on the road but the clutch and brakes have issues.

I orginally removed all the calipers to repaint then reinstalled. I also put in a new clutch master cylindar and slave cylinder. We bled both mutiple times and finished the brakes by doing it the old fashioned method with two people. They are currently still spongy with all the air seeming to be removed.

The clutch after I bled left a board to compress the clutch overnight and that seemed to help but after a few hours uncompressed its hard or impossible to get into any gear.

What mainly happens is when driving if I press the brakes (currently are very light dont work until near the floor) then the clutch no longer works or comes all the way up sometimes and I have to pump it a lot before I can get it into gear. Each time I brake the clutch doesnt work well until I pump it a lot and then I can barely get it into gear.

I figured the brakes and clutch are sort of related so any help would be great I have bled this stuff so many times its so annoying!!!

 

There is something very funky with your situation. The brakes and clutch circuits are completely separate. The one thing they share is the fluid reservoir. That do not make them interrelated, except when the fluid is too low.

Are you using DOT4 fluid?
Is the fluid level higher than the min mark on the reservoir?

You should concentrate getting the brake pedal firm first. Properly bled, the pedal should be rock solid when the engine is off. When the engine is started you will feel it goes down a bit and softens a bit because of the power assist.

 

Ok, ya when the car is off it is very hard and I will go check again but when I turn it on then it seems to go a lot further than I remember from last time I drove the car. I understand they arent really related but thought maybe there happened to be something going on, Yes I have been using ATE dot4

 

Its also odd witht the clutch that when I leave the board compressing it overnight it works excellent for a while but then back to very hard to shift. Did I break something else now?

 

If there is a bit of air in the clutch hydraulic line and/or cylinders it can cause the slave cylinder not able to push a full stroke to fully disengage clutch. Hence hard to shift as the clutch is dragging - I call it draggy. This is assuming you clutch mechanicals are OK.

A lot of folks finished the clutch job experience soft clutch. After some driving all becomes well which is an indication it is self bleeding from the air bubble rising to the top and got worked out by the master cylinder. That is my inference.

 

Well I give it a try for the rest of the week and see what its like saturday night, I did just notice that the brakes are very hard but after a little bit of pushing down then they get hard with the car off, it just seems its a little delayed and not getting hard immediatly.

I guess I will also try leaving the board each night and see what happens, I check the resevior when I do and there are no bubbles at the surface. and currently the resevior is exactly at the max arrow where I left it at the begining of the week

Thanks for the help even though this car is super fussy at the moment

 

Y brakes could really use some help they can stop fine but there’s a lot of sponginess and I have read that it might be air in abs system, I did take all the calipers off, so I don’t have a scan tool and don’t have the money to get one right now, so how do I go about getting abs to activate then bleed again... kinda confused on what I have found

the Clutch is still bad as well, when I put the board to keep the clutch compressed overnight it works great all day, but if I leave the clutch uncompressed a full night it goes back to not working unless I pump it a lot each time I change gear.

 

For risking my reputation I would go out to the limb and say you have to do something special to bleed the ABS module is a myth. I have read the Bentley and it says nothing about the extra step to bleed the ABS module. Just do the bleeding as you normally would. An important tip when you bleed the calipers with the pressure bleeder. Set the box wrench such that you can open the nipple as wide as possible when swing the wrench from close to open. A faster flow will tend to prevent the air bubble to rise against gravity.

Flushing with racing fluid can get expensive fast. I would use standard DOT4 until I am happy and then flush thru with racing fluid if you must have them. I would not bother to use racing fluid for everyday road driving. Not even if you need to descend from the Rockies.

 

I will add one more tip that is related to one above. If you have a lot of air or difficult to rid air pockets, it may be better to bleed it the old fashion way with a helper. By synchronizing you can have the helper step on the pedal hard and you open the nipple wide to expel the fluid and air before the bubbles have a chance to rise to the top of vertical segments of the lines. With a pressure bleeder, you can certainly increase the pressure, but risk blowing the reservoir out of the master cylinder and make a crazy mess.

 

If you do use the traditional method, tell the person pressing on the pedal to not go all the way to the floor. Stop about 2/3 of the way down because going full bore will create undue wear on the seals. The piston doesn't normally go down that far. BTW, I've been using a MOTIVE bleeder at 15 lb. pressure on all my cars and have yet to blow out a reservoir.

 

I just want to update for anyone in the future on my previous threads;

I ended up leaving a piece of wood compressing the clutch for over 48 hours, then I removed it, had to pull the clutch pedal up the rest of the way, I then put the piece of wood back on it and left for another full night and most of the day with the cap off the reseviour.
Its had a few hiccups as in needed to pull the pedal partialy back up during driving with my foot but now it is better then ever!!

It shifts good now and havent had any problems for about a week. So we are good to go.

Brakes seem better as well but maybe Ill bleed them again just to see.

Thanks for all the help getting the Mini back on the road from the long winter!